Pat Calhoun

Dell #894 1958 of 1954 hb -cov William George- Pocket #709 1950 of 1949 hb, Paul Pine #3 (Halo for Satan was #2) cov Mike Ludlow

Howard Brown and Howard Browne are 2 different people... got this at early LA PB Con (is Dennis McMillan 1988 cov Joe Servello). Browne had retired Pine after 3 books but in mid '50s Lee Wright, mystery editor at Simon and Shuster, reminded him he owed them a book 'and why not bring back Paul Pine?' So S&S 1957 HB but Dell wanted to cut 5000 words and Wright said no so there was no original pb... it's a memorable encore.

don't have the 12/42 Amazing, but index BZ pointed out http://www.philsp.com did. but do have the 1943 hb, dj by Fridolf Johnson.

talk about trifecta: Fawcett femme formula, cool cov (has the Barye P look), and manning the typewriter, the Master of Suspense- Cornell Woolrich. 1950

Pocket Books produced the first line of paperbacks in the modern format starting in 1939, similar to citing Famous Funnies of 1934 as a start date for the modern mass-market comic book. Obviously both had many precursors. That makes PB’s the youngest of the paper trifecta- pulps, paperbacks, comics- and maybe the slickest. The second revolution came in 1950 with Fawcett’s Gold Medal Books. Whereas Pocket and the other publishers (Dell, Avon, Popular Library, Signet, Bantam, etc) of the 1940s dealt mostly in reprints of novels etc that had been issued in hard covers, Gold Medal specialized in PaperBack Originals (PBO’s) that were first publication. That meant they paid a little more for the content, but it gave their product an appeal others couldn’t match, and in a ‘field of dreams’ scenario ended up with fresh exciting narrative of a style that hadn’t existed before. Gold Medal was such a gold mine that caving on the comics battle can be seen in retrospect as a brilliant and highly profitable business decision… The below is a perfect example of the GM style, need I mention that the femme figured prominently in the matrix? Barye Phillips did a lot of nice covers in the ‘50s (many GM’s) and beyond, this being one. #163 1951 (GM numbering began with #99. ‘Nude in Mink’ -shown this thread last week- was #105)

oh yeah- this could be the all-time #1 photo cover- Bravissimo!

Howard Browne moonlighting from Amazing again with one of his great Paul Pine novels. classic femme cov by ? 1950 pb 1st of 1948 hb

it is a sublime issue. since we featured HPL's 'The Color Out of Space' a bit back, thought I'd point out that it also includes this wonderful little homage

nice and bright- that, too, looks like Howard Brown...

Jan 1935 Astounding (cover was shown few days ago) all I know of the mysterious M Marchioni is he/she did a lot of sf illos during those years...

Red Peri was a femme too- redhead space pirate. jacket by John T. Brooks. second short story collection (after one shown on BC that I don't have) 1952

SS #2 shown above -more Black Flame DJ

early TWS and SS were edited by Mort Weisinger before his move to DC. here's the novel splash...

thanks for posting Startling #1. Thrilling Wonder Stories #1 (big sis) got posted in pulp thread last night and I responded with #2. so here's Startling #2. my best guess is that the cover artist on all four is one who I'm way upwardly revising and who I already thought was real good- Howard Brown (more to come on him...) he was also lead cover artist at Astounding at this time (stylistic similarities) and online folks do say he did 'early TWS & SS covs'. so...

mustn't forget to feature femme fatales from the far future- this pub 1948

Bigheads rule! I like the early Thrilling Wonders- here's the next ish

off to a good start- very nice cover on an interesting precode DC- well done!

she's cool, but if we shift gears only slightly and search for the funniest femme fatale- I have a contender... Eva De Struction, the pneumatic antagonist of 'Gorgonzola, Won't You Please Come Home' by Clyde Ames (aka Allison). she marches upon (tramples upon?) LA while at the controls of a giant robot Godzilla... Yes Allison wrote for the 'adult' market, and if the Inuit have 200 words for snow- Clyde musters quite a few phrases in praise of the female breast. But he's hilarious. This is one of his few published by the mainstream Lancer... 1967

I remember that one. on my first trip to Santa Rosa (where I live) -around 1979- got off the old grayhound and walked across street into goodwill store and picked up a solid lower grade copy for a dime! the bus station is gone as is the store- and the book! but memories remain- thanks! this IW reprint of the Avon comic isn't as good as should be- is verbose with cramped small panels.

1959

Sumuru is fun in a breezy way... here's an 'FF' from Howard Browne that he wrote while (presumably) moonlighting after his day job as managing editor of Amazing Stories. HB was 1947, pb 1952

from 'yellow peril' to 'yellow spine peril' and back! 1957 PBO Barye Phillips cov- Dr Fu sets out to steal an A-bomb...

this 1950 gem 'has to be' by Rudolph Belarski